In reply to UKC News:
I really hope Tom wiil write a report on it, but yesterday has finished the first Orco Valley Trad Climbing Meeting, organized by the Italian CAAI (the Academical Alpine Club), and it was a huge success, with dozens for young, strong climbers from all over the world joining forces to repeat the classics and the hardest routes and create new lines on the granite of Valle Orco.
I believe the climbing quality seen has been absolutely outstanding even for Orco's standard, but I think that Tom's contribution (that has included opening a new route near the Fessura della Disperazione) was absolutely outstanding.
The spotlight on Tom wasn't exclusively on the crags: he (along with another Brit legend, Lindsay Griffin) has been one of the stars of the post-meeting conference on the state of trad climbing in Orco (and in Italy) organized by the CAAI. This - my opinion - was really one of the highlights on the meeting; Tom made a relatively short but very interesting (and funny) presentation of his Orco activites to a mesmerize audience - and what an audience!
There were - among others - some of the greatest senior names of Italian climbing history, among them Andrea Mellano (first Italian ascent of NF of Eiger, first Italian ascent of the Alpine Trilogy), Vasco Taldo (one of the men of the Torres del Paine "race" with Bonington and Whillans in 1963 - BTW, according to him that was mostly a myth, they got along with Whillans quite well) and no one else than Ugo "Pan E Pera" Manera, who started the whole Orco Valley climbing thing in 1970 with Gianpiero Motti, Giancarlo Grassi and Mike Kosterlitz .
For me, the most emotional moment of the evening was when Tom stated, quite nonchalantly, that he's been 7 times in Orco and 14 in Yosemite, but he intends to come back to Orco every year, as now he thinks Orco is a time capsule back into what Yosemite may have been once. Manera, who's now 72, was absolutely ecstatic, with a huge grin from ear to ear, and made no mystery he consider Tom's achievement as a continuation, even in spirit, of what he and Kosterlitz (another Brit) and the others did back in the early 70. It was a magical moment of triumph, and really gave everyone the sense that something has gone full circle after 40 years.
Following on from last years episode, Wide Fetish Golden Boys Do Italy, Tom Randall leads a pack of Peakies to Euroland to repeat famous off-widths and to search for new rock to climb.
